I just had a discussion with a guildie (a wonderful fellow resto druid) about this, who helped me really understand the mechanics here. I thought I might clear this up for everyone (although I’m pretty sure I was the only one confused in the first place. Bah).

1. Heals up to 5 party OR raid members. So, pretty much anyone. We’re all one big happy family.
2. 40 yard range. Just like a normal spell.
3. Within 15 yards of THE TARGET.

Wild Growth affects people who are 15 yards around the person whom you cast it on, not 15 yards from you. So it’s not as though the spell has a range of 15 yards – you can use it up to 40 yards away. The range in which it will “spread” to five people total is 15 yards from your target.

Scenario 1: You have a group of people all around you, and one person 35 yards away from you. You put WG on that one person. It ticks on them and only them, even if that person is at full health, because there’s no one else within 15 yards of them to have it tick on.

Scenario 2: You have a group of 5 people 35 yards from you, no one else is around. You put a WG on one of them. It ticks on all of them regardless of their health at that moment, because there are only 5 in the group.

Scenario 3: You have a group of 10 people all bunched up, 35 yards away. 4 are at 50% health, 6 are at full health. You put a WG on someone – it will hit the 4 people with 50% health, and randomly select one of the people with full health as the fifth.

Scenario 4: You have a full raid, 25 people, all closely grouped around you. Everyone has full health. You put a WG on someone. It will randomly select 5 people from the 25 (and not necessarily select your target) to WG.

Scenario 5: You have 2 tanks and 5 melee bunched up, 35 yards away. Both tanks have full health, but are about to take some damage. The melee all have 80% health. You put a WG on one of the tanks to pre-HoT him in anticipation of incoming damage. The tank will NOT receive the WG, and instead it will go to the 5 melee with 80% health.

Get it?
I know I do.

(finally)

To be honest, I wish it was a party heal. I understand that a smart heal, in most cases, is preferable. Consider this: Everyone is grouped up (think Thaddius). One person in each party takes 50% damage. WG on one of them and BAM all 5 are being healed. It makes sense, it’s awesome. It’s also moron-proof, and I hate that. It would honestly be more fun if one person in each group took 50% damage and you have to think “oh crap, I can’t use WG, how do I go about healing everyone as efficiently as possible?” Instead of just hitting “4”, you would have to *think*. Hey, back when I thought WG was a party heal, it was fun to judge how many people in a particular party had taken damage, and was it enough damage and/or enough people taking that damage for me to warrant a WG (Yes, you can laugh at me. Yes, I’ve been healing like this for the past like, 6 raids. BUT. HEY. I’ve been at or close to the top of most healing charts, so it’s not – ok, ok fine. Keep laughing. I know. I deserve it).

The other problem is that you can never pre-hot a particular group. Prehotting (especially with Wild Growth) is awesome on, say, Maexxna (right before the web wrap), and Gluth (right before decimate). I mean, ok – you *can* prehot a group, but it’s only going to hit that group if the group already has a lot of damage. If you want to prehot a group that is at full health, it will only work if they are in the exact position to guarantee that. Which rarely happens.

This makes WG (as my guildmate put it)a very REACTIONARY HoT. Every single other HoT druids have can be used preemptively, but WG cannot. Just something to keep in mind, and QQ about during Maexxna. ^^

With aGlyph of Healing Touchand the proper talents, it is possible to make healing touch a very good, fast cast direct heal. This can dramatically reduce a restoration druids’ disability for healing per second. A Healing touch may have 1 sec casting time, and heal for roughly 6.5 times more than the mana cost with talents, glyph, and 1000 bonus healing spellpower.

Swiftmend heals the target for the equal amount of 12 seconds of Rejuvenation, or 18 seconds of Regrowth

If in any case both Rejuvenation and Regrowth are present on the target, the HoT with the least time left will be consumed. (credit to the Official Druid forums)

Spellpower and healing increasing talents do not affect Swiftmend directly. All benefits are applied to the HoT (either Regrowth or Rejuvenation); the amount of the Swiftmend is simply 4 or 6 ticks worth of the affected Rejuvenation or Regrowth, respectively.

A player can consume a Regrowth or Rejuvenation with Swiftmend cast by another druid. The amount of the Swiftmend is determined by the size of the HoT cast by the other druid.

Therefore we can calculate the size of your self-innervates if we know your total spirit:

Total Spirit

Mana Restored Under Innervate

100

1861

150

2416

200

2972

250

3527

300

4083

350

4683

400

5194

450

5749

500

6305

550

6860

600

7417

650

7972

700

8528

Innervate gains nothing from mana/5, but because it’s a 20-second cast, we assume that you’ll get back 20 seconds worth of your mp5 regen (which is 4 * mp5), so that’s why we add this to the “mana gained while under innervate.”

Note that when you cursor over the “Regen” section of your character screen, the “Regeneration While Casting” shows your Mana/5 plus 30% of your spirit regen (because you have 3/3 Intensity). This number is NOT your actual mp5 (you’ll just have to tally this up manually).

All of this math helps us use Innervate more effectively.

Innervate Guidelines

Innervate a target who has a significant amount of spirit. Priests are the usually the best, followed by druids; however, realize that this depends on how much spirit gear your target has. Shaman and Paladins usually have very low spirit, so Innverating them is almost a waste of a cooldown. If you had to pick one, I would probably choose the shaman.

Innervating a shadow priest is often beneficial for the group as a whole because shadow priests burn through mana very quickly, but return mana to the entire group. Therefore, helping a shadowpriest with mana will allow them to dps more aggressively, which will be better for that entire group in the long run.

Innervate early on very long endurance fights – Magtheridon and A’lar. About a minute into the fight, innervate someone who is at like 50-60% mana. You’ll probably waste a few innervate ticks, but you’ll also get your Innervate back a second time towards the end of the fight.

When self-innervating a lot of druids throw on weapons with a ton of spirit on them (and with +spirit enchants) to maximize the mana gained from innervate. See General Gear Recommendations for a few examples.

Spirit vs. Mana/5

While not in the FSR (while not casting):

4.5 Spirit = 1 mana per tick (every 2 sec)

2.5 Mp5 = 1 mana per tick

1.8 Spirit = 1 Mp5

However, while in the FSR:

15 Spirit = 1 mana per tick

2.5 Mp5 = 1 mana per tick

6 Spirit = 1 Mp5

Raid buffed you’re going to have a Blessing of Kings, and spirit will stack with this, mp5 wont. Also remember that the Living Spirit talent (+15% spirit) will stack with Blessing of Kings. These two buffs will affect the mp5 to spirit conversion:

However, realize that mp5 does absolutely nothing for your innervate, so which is better? Mp5 or Spirit? Before we can answer that question, we need to talk about a little spell called Innervate…

Spirit vs. Mana/5 Revisited – Accounting for Innervate

Which is better? The answer to that question depends on a few conditions:

Note that we assume Innervate returns mana based on a 6-minute cooldown.

Also, note that we use the phrase “Spirit (on a piece of gear).” This means that when you compare gear you can use these conversions directly to determine which will give you more regen. For example, if you have Living Spirit, Blessing of Kings, and you’re trying to compare two pieces of gear (one with 25 spirit, and another with 10 mp5) here’s how you would do the math:

25 Spirit / 2.46 = 10.16 mp5

Therefore the piece of gear with 25 spirit would have better regen (assuming you innervated yourself).
Here’s an example of the math behind these numbers. In this case we seek to determine the spirit to mp5 conversion if you self-Innervate and if you have Blessing of Kings (but not Living Spirit):

Which Is Better?

Spirit or Mana/5? The truth is that you want a balance of both. Spirit increases the healing from your ToL Buff, and it also increases the size of your self-Innervates. However, even with self-Innervates, even with the +15% spirit talent and Blessing of Kings: Mp5 is still preferable to spirit. Now, that’s not to say that you should shun spirit all-together, no you need a good chuck of spirit too… but pound for pound, point of regen for point of regen, Mp5 is usually superior.

If you can find a piece of gear that has 2.83 times (or 2.46 times) as much spirit as Mp5, then that piece is superior. It depends on your conversion (based on spec), whether you plan to self-innervate (or if you plan to innervate others), and how much +healing you want your ToL bonus to give.

There… I hope that clears up the debate. You can argue both ways ad nauseam, but now you at least have the conversions so that you can select gear more intelligently.